Done with Dealing
by Melt into the Air
Summary: Peter Bishop had spent the past year getting his life back together. He had a stable job, a steady home, and, finally, something he could call family. But after the events on that bridge - when he lived, where he should not have - he is forced to contemplate the unthinkable: his entire premise of reality was utterly wrong. (Episode 2x19, Man From the Other Side)


**A/N: This takes place in episode 2x19. Throughout the majority of Season 2, I found myself feeling Walter's pain; he had, after all, lost his only son. He was, understandably, willing to do anything to get his son back. After this episode, however, I found myself thinking of the anguish which Peter was feeling. This is my attempt at understanding the reality which he was abruptly forced to face, in the form of a brief one-shot written to sort through my own thought processes on the subject. Enjoy.  
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White walls backwashed white sheets as Peter stared blankly at nothing in particular, listening to the electrocardiogram beep in time to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. The cadenced tempo of the throbbing electrical spikes created a monotonous tone that had a certain lulling quality. It had become a part of the environment, background noise that seemed to slow the progression of time.

He wondered how much time had slowed when he had died in Walter's arms. When the other him—the one that _belonged_ in this universe—had ceased to exist.

That was the reason why Walter had made that first jump. With the loss of his child, Walter had begun to drown in grief. Grief was an understandable chemical reaction, one that affected everyone at some point in their lives. But that misery can drive a person to great lengths.

And Walter's length had been too far.

This was not how things were supposed to happen. After all these years, Peter had finally been growing closer to Walter again, had finally regained what resembled a family. But this past year…it had all been a lie? It wasn't right. It just _wasn't right_.

His entire life was a lie. He saw that now. Everything that had happened in the past twenty years had not been meant for him. Every spoken word was wrong, every glance was wrong, every breath was wrong, it was _wrong_.

The crossing over…what had it done to him? What, exactly, had changed in him the moment he stepped through the gate? So many thoughts, so many memories that he held of his childhood he had written off as imagination; they hadn't lined up with reality. Peter could remember waking up in the morning to the sizzle of grease in a skillet, walking into the kitchen to the smell of bacon frying. He could remember it; he could.

But his mother was a vegetarian.

There was no indicator in his mind to allow himself to differentiate between childhood fantasies and childhood recollections. All of them—even the ones that, now, he was positive were real—were distant, difficult to make out. Were those fuzzy maybe-memories simply weathered with age, or had the jump between universes addled his mind?

There was no way he could know.

He had been lied to, and blatantly, for his entire life. His father—

No. Not his father.

_Walter_ had fed him stories of a Peter-not-present since the day they crossed over. Walter had made him believe that those stories were real, that his life was here.

Walter had lied to him.

By all accounts, this man that had assumed the position of a father was a felon by all legal standards. If the same laws applied in regard to alternate universes, Walter rightfully belonged in prison. How long had he expected to reap the rewards of this kidnapping—of this theft—before dealing with the repercussions? Sure, he was crazy _now_, but never in his life has he been _stupid_. He had known for over twenty years that Peter was not in the right life.

Peter screwed his eyes shut. How could _anyone_ have known about a deed so morally wrong, and yet _not tell him_?

And Olivia had to have known…

Peter sat up in bed, tossing the sheets off his legs and swinging his feet off the side of the mattress. This has been enough. He was done with dealing with all of the lies. He was done. Everything he thought he had known…wrong. It was all wrong.

And he couldn't make it right.

The white clock in the room read 2:38 a.m. He unbuttoned the hospital gown and yanked up his jeans. He couldn't handle it any longer. But there was no place he could go. There was not one single place in which he belonged. Hell, he didn't belong in this _world_, much less in this city.

Now fully clothed, and bearing his meager belongings, he walked the corridors to the entrance, where he spied the front desk night-shift nurse. She raised her eyebrows in question as he approached the desk.

"My vitals are fine. I'm stable, my heart rate and BP are normal, there is nothing physically wrong with me," he laid out. "If you must, get the report from the nurse that just visited me twenty minutes ago. I'm fine."

The nurse understood, but was unsure where this was leading. "…And?"

"And I'd like to discharge myself from this hospital."

He didn't belong. There was nowhere he could go.

But damned if he couldn't drive.

_Finis_


End file.
